Have you accumulated tens or hundreds of thousands of miles, but you just can’t figure out how to use them? Would you like award alerts that get you straight to the points? Then I have something for you!!

Well, I think its only a matter of time before you’ll be getting award alerts for these products in your e-mail! Just think, we’ve already seen business class to Australia posted!

So, how can you get award alerts that get you straight to the points?

You may have picked up on the “Straight to the Points“ component of the title. My friend Spencer Howard recently launched an Award Alerts feature. Its pretty easy to sign up, you can navigate here.

Once there, just enter your e-mail:

Once you hit subscribe, you’ll get an e-mail asking you to confirm your e-mail address.

Once you’ve done that, just wait for the e-mails to come in, and have your points balances ready!

Wrapping Up

There aren’t a lot of award alert options out there. You can set your own via ExpertFlyer, you could rely on the occasional posts from bloggers, but, I feel like Spencer’s Award Alert e-mail is going to be an interesting option. He typically looks for premium travel, but, because he often helps folks find award flights, he doesn’t have the kind of blinders I have one–that is, he actually looks at economy awards!

Bottom Line – this will take you less than 120 seconds to sign up, and even if you only find one or two awards a month that are interesting to you, it still seems well worth it to receive these alerts!

The latest Skytrax Airline awards were announced at the Paris Air Show, and I have to say, I’m left wondering whether Skytrax Awards are perception over reality. Don’t get me wrong, I agreed with most of Skytrax perceptions with regard to airports.

Skytrax Awards Background

Skytrax Awards are largely revered within the industry. Traveling around Asia this past weekend, I heard it mentioned a couple of times on Bangkok Airways, which received an award for the best Regional Airline, and Thai had advertisements for the best Worlds Best Economy Class.

It is admittedly kind of a big deal when 19.87M votes are cast, but I am still left wondering whether this is a perception thing over reality.

Qatar Airways Wins Skytrax Award for Best Business Class

For me, this is where the rubber meets the road. I have flown Qatar on the 787 and the 777-300ER. Flying from Washington’s Dulles International Airport, we are serviced by the 777-300ER, so that’s the experience I most commonly associate with Qatar.

I totally get that Lucky is basing Qatar’s best Business Class based on the 787, A350 and A380 hard products, however, according to Wikipedia 57 aircraft across those three aircraft types (in fact, most of them, 30 are 787s!). The fact remains though that the seats flown on their 26 A330s, 4 A340’s, 9 777-200LR, and 34 777-300ER’s are a far inferior, 2-2-2 business class configuration. So more than half of Qatar’s fleet has an industry trailing hard product.

Final Thoughts on Skytrax Awards

Specific to Qatar, I truly question whether this is really a perception over reality. Realize that the ballots were all cast well before the first 777 flew with the new QSuites. I totally get that Qatar provides a very good soft product, but how can an airline that has less than half of their fleet with a solid hard product, be the number one business class product?

For comparison, here is the seat in its upright and uncomfortable setting:

Here is the seat in its reclined for take-­off position:

I can testify that it is much, much more comfortable in the reclined position!

The seat in general also has a lot of other features, here’s the seat control:

Here is the seat reclined fully:

And if you’re curious of the kind of leg room you might have, this is from 1D:

There’s also In Flight Entertainment (IFE)… Here’s the controller.

Here’s the noise canceling headphones.

Here’s the screen – and there’s a lot of great options!

And if you want to get work done, the tray table is spacious, and provides plenty of room for a tablet, Surface, or laptop.

Of course if you want to eat, well, Qantas has some very good options for that as well

Conclusion:

I’m not one for hyperbole, but I wish every A330 was provisioned the way Qantas’ A330 is. The seat is very comfortable, I felt spoiled. The IFE was enjoyable. The food was good. But most important in any business class experience is the seat. It was perfect. I can’t say enough about the seat. Furthermore, with Qantas being an industry leader with the ability to be reclined at take-off and landing, well, that is huge. Absolutely huge. I highly recommend it.

Lufthansa 747-400 Business Class

We started out flying on a business award on Lufthansa’s 747-400 aircraft. We did visit the Lufthansa lounge briefly, it’s biggest benefit was boarding from the lounge.

As far as the aircraft itself, it was nice, it was perhaps the first time I’ve been on a 747-400 since flying to Sydney on United back in 2012. Candidly (as I generally am), this wasn’t much better than United’s business class, in fact, it was 2-3-2 across on Lufthansa vs. 2-4-2 across on United. Besides that, I didn’t really think much of the hard product – I felt the folks behind me moving, and it wasn’t terribly private, as I heard the same folks having a loud conversation most of the flight. The blanket was nice. The service was more than sufficient.

More room for the window seat, but the foot cubbies are awfully tight for both seats.

Plentiful (well, at least two) power outlets!

Ultimately, the flight was good but not great. It was also a redeye leaving at 3:45pm.

American Airlines 767-300 Business Class

Our next business class flight was on American Airlines from Milan Malepensa to Miami.

This was American Airlines’ 767-300 staggered layflat product. This is also the product where American distributes tablets since the business class cabin doesn’t have conventional In Flight Entertainment (IFE). Overall, I found this to be enjoyable. I would gladly take the smaller screen to not have my movie interrupted by various Public Address notices. But maybe that is just me.

Comfortable American Airlines 767 Business Class Seat.

If there was one thing that I think could be improved, it is the fact that at least for my window seat, I could not drop the window-side arm-rest. That made the seat—which was otherwise spacious feeling—feel very narrow. I lost track of how many times I hit my shoulder against the arm rest as I rolled over… But hey, maybe that’s just me.

American Airlines 777-200 Business Class

Our third business flight was Miami to Rio de Janiero, again a new product from me.

This was the refit 777-200, with the seats that went both forwards and backwards. This is the one that is reportedly being jettisoned for a new seat from B/E Aerospace. Both my wife and I have backward facing seats, although my wife didn’t have anyone connected, and as a result, didn’t feel the regular jumping, jiving, and jigging that I felt, whenever my connected neighbor moved. Despite the lack of privacy of the Lufthansa seat, this was my least favorite seat of the trip.

The service was good for the late hour, and my wife told me that the steak with Bourson was phenomenal (for airline food).

The blanket was upgraded over the 767 flight we had taken just 6-8 hours earlier. But otherwise, this flight wasn’t terribly memorable. Would I fly the refit-772 again? Yes, over the old 772, in business at least. But would I choose the 772 over a 767 or a 777-300ER? No way. Hopefully the next seat–the B/E Aerospace Super Diamond Seat–will be better.

Earlier this week, Skift reported on a seat from Zodiac Aerospace that “erases the line between business and first class.” I couldn’t disagree more with that assertion. But before I get into why I disagree with their statement, let me first offer some background about the seat.

About Zodiac Aerospace’s Fusio Seat

Zodiac Aerospace first introduced the Fusio concept at the Hamburg 2014 Aircraft Interiors Expo. They took that concept, enhanced it, and displayed it at this year’s Aircraft Interior Expo (AIX15). Zodiac describes it:

Fusio takes a new approach to prestige luxury with an amazing living space thanks to a sofa seat offering a dynamic seating comfort and a streamlined versatility allowing many different positions as one will do at home.

This high-end concept offers a package of sophisticated technology and refinement with a home feeling monitor integration up to 27”, a one piece table up to 20” x 15”, luxurious upholstery with high level of quality close to VIP finish, smooth integration into the design, coat room for each pax…

– See more at: http://www.zodiacaerospace.com/en/new-super-business-class-zodiac-seats#sthash.87IjZDJW.dpuf

To answer that question, lets first look at business class. As Gary Leff of View from the Wing has written multiple times, Business Class is all about the seat. I agree with this statement. When I fly business, I expect a layflat seat, and a reasonable meal. I don’t expect fine champagne, caviar or anything else. I wouldn’t turn these things down, but its not expected. So for business class, you’re generally looking at a seat like this:

And for First Class, you’re looking for a seat like this:

While the first class seats offer a bit more room in some instances, at the end of the day, both business and first class seats lay flat. What separates the two classes are the food, drinks and service. In first class you are expecting/looking for something more then just a comfortable seat. You’re looking for the caviar, the meal, the sake, or the wine, like this:

Sake Tasting

Wrapping Up

In short – you can offer nicer seats for business class, but the seat isn’t what will make the flight a true first class experience.

This is part two of the ANA Flight 1101 -Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Tokyo-Narita (NRT) review, as my wife and mother in-law flew in business. ANA Flight 1101 was operated by a 777-300ER (77W).

Introduction

All Nippon Airways Business Class boarding area.

It was kind’ve humorous, the three of us (Trevor, my mom and I) boarding from two separate gates, only to see each other 3 rows apart, since my mom and I boarded through door 2L.

Seat

This was the first international business flight my mom has taken, so with all the buttons and storage locations it took most of pre departure for her to figure everything out. The ANA crew and I helped her of course. The seat while a bit on the narrow side, was more than enough room. Though my mom would have preferred a seat that was a bit shorter in height or a closer foot rest.

Seat and Amenities

The amenities included slippers, a nice kit with nice hand cream, and a set of noise cancelling headphones to use on the plane, which worked very well. We were seated in the mini cabin right behind first class, similar to the American Airlines 777-300ER but it was much quieter and less bright than what we experienced on the American Airlines flight.

Pre-Departure / Inflight meal service

During boarding we enjoyed pre-departure champagne, although I wasn’t able to get a photo of it.

The one thing we learned was that ANA will not let you go hungry during the flight.

The appetizers were quite good though if you are not a fan of fish you might want to see if they could sub it out.

Appetizer one

Appetizer two

For my main entree, I had the filet of beef steak. It ended up being the second best piece of airplane steak that I had this trip. It was well worth trying it.

Fillet of Beef in All Nippon business class.

The small the tart hit the spot at the end of the meal. My mom also had some ice cream mid-flight that she raved about, unfortunately I was asleep and didn’t grab a photo of it.

Apple Tart

If you fly ANA you have to try the hot green tea as it is very good. I’m not sure how they manage to make it taste as good as they do, but they do, and I’m not usually a big fan of green tea.

After dinner drink, plus some hot green tea.

Bed

Both my mom and I found the bed to be more than sufficient. The duvet was warm enough, but not overly so. The arms didn’t go down, which made the bed more narrow than I’m used to, but still comfortable for a good nights rest.

All Nippon Business Class bed.

Final Thoughts

They were fantastic for the entire flight. ANA Business class has a nice product though if you don’t like tight spaces you’ll want a set that has direct access to the aisle vs. having a small console between the seat and aisle. I would put ANA business class on the fly again list.

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